The Man Picked up by the Gods

Volume 3 Chapter 28

“Good work~” [Remiri]

“Oops!” [Ryouma]

“Why did you dodge!?” [Remiri]

As we finished subjugating the undead, Remiri-san called out. Realizing I was about to be hugged, I dodged, and Remiri-san started pouting.

“But you suddenly jumped at me, so…” [Ryouma]

“Fine, then… Come on!” [Remiri]

Said Remiri-san as she spread her arms wide open.

… She wants me to hug her?

“What are you doing? Come on!” [Remiri]

“No, it’s not come on!” [Ryouma]

“They’re soft, you know?” [Remiri]

“Sof–!?” [Ryouma]

Shocked and confused, I accidentally bit my tongue.

“Weren’t you looking at my breasts when we first met~? I won’t let you touch them, but it can’t be helped if they touch you while I hug you, right~?” [Remiri]

“Ah, that’s…” [Ryouma]

“Lying’s bad, you know? You can’t trick oneesan.” [Remiri]

What should I say? What should I do? Flustered, and caught in a dilemma, my head began to spin, when Sebasu-san intervened.

“Remiri-sama, please don’t tease Ryouma-sama any more than this. We’re currently near the labyrinth, so magical beasts could come at any time.” [Sebasu]

“And Ryouma-kun, aside from magic, you shouldn’t take what Remiri-san says so seriously.” [Rheinbach]

“Remiri, since when did you start thanking people for a job well done?” [Shiva]

“Sheesh… But I can’t help it, Ryouma-kun’s normally so serious, so I thought it’d be funny.” [Remiri]

Saved, I thought. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel some regret too. Remiri-san is a beauty after all. And I am a guy, so…

Come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve been teased like this since coming to this world. Not that stuff like this happened a lot back in my previous world, but it did happen quite a bit when I would get an annoying job pushed to me… My head would also cool down quickly during those times.

“Sorry, Ryouma-kun. I ended up teasing you. It’s normal for boys to want to see breasts, so don’t mind it. I’ll teach you magic, so forgive me, ok?” [Remiri]

“Ah, yes.” [Ryouma]

Unintentionally, I gave a half-hearted reply. Let’s change the topic.

“Anyway, it looks like we’ve already defeated the undead in this area.” [Ryouma]

“Looks like it. The undead tend to gather to where living beings are. And they have a number of ways to detect the living, but for the meantime, it should be safe.” [Rheinbach]

“That was quite a lot of undead though. I guess we just caught some bad luck, and ran into a horde of them before they were whittled down by someone else.” [Shiva]

This maze isn’t really popular. The road is a mess, so fighting monsters is a pain. On top of that, there’re less magic jewels here compared to other magic-made labyrinths, so the profit here is less.

Because of that the undead rarely gets whittled down, and knights and clergymen need to be sent in order to get rid of the accumulating undead. It’s a good opportunity, so they’re apparently doing it both as training and as a job.

“Let’s go and find a safe place where we can rest first.” [Shiva]

“Yeah, I guess we should. If we just go in now, we’ll have to deal with more undead, so let’s just enter the labyrinth tomorrow.” [Remiri]

When there are a lot of undead roaming outside the labyrinth from the afternoon onwards, there’s a chance that the undead within the labyrinth are so numerous that they can’t help but go outside. We can just go in, and defeat them. But the magic the others used a while ago can’t be used consecutively, so defeating the undead will require a ton of effort.

So with that, we decided to create a safe area with ‘Holy Space’ to camp in instead. And just whittle down the undead coming out of the labyrinth until sunrise.

With that, we started to prepare our camp.

I used ‘Holy Space’. And inside that, I opened my ‘Item Box’ and brought out the special camping tools that I prepared beforehand. When Sebasu-san saw that, he asked,

“Ryouma-sama, what is that?” [Sebasu]

“Camping tools.” [Ryouma]

What was in my hands were four iron rods. On one end, was a sharpened tip like that of a stake. And on the other end, was a circle pedestal to which something could be affixed to.

Cladding those rods in ki, I stabbed the sharp end of the iron rods into the north, west, south, and east borders of ‘Holy Space’ on the ground. And then I took out a spherical-shaped object from my ‘Item Box’, and placed it on top of a pedestal.

The shape of that object was a bit weird, but any Japanese would recognize it at first glance. It was an alcohol lamp.

Half a year ago, around the time when I was fuzzing over the drunk slime’s abilities, and was trying to create fruit wines with it, I concluded that the slime could mostly only be used for my personal amusement. As for why, it’s because Serge-san told me that alcohol is a tricky commodity to sell.

Sugar is expensive in this world. And sugar being one of the main ingredients of fruit wine, would mean that I can’t make any profit with liquor unless I sell it at a high price.

Moreover, while there are magical beasts that are publicly accepted as consumable meat (so I could technically sell the slimes’ alcohol) but at the same time, there are also those that don’t want to consume magical beasts depending on the species. Because of that, we concluded that there’s a possibility of slime liquor not being popular. As such it’s not something worth venturing into unless one is ready to suffer losses.

With that, I decided that it’s better to just use it for personal use. At the same time, I wondered whether there were some other ways I could use it, and using alchemy, I was able to create disinfectants, solvents, and fuel.

Although metal content could be found in the alcohol (ethanol) on earth, both drinkable and undrinkable. I couldn’t get any metals.

But even then, plenty of soot would come out, so I thought it was fine. But when I created an alcohol lamp out of the sticky slime’s concentrated hardened liquid, an idea hit me, and I thought of melting the concentrated sticky liquid. With that it went even better.

Moreover, while the fire lit from just ethanol was pale blue, and was hard to see in bright places. The fire from ethanol mixed with concentrated sticky liquid was bright enough to be useable as a torch. I created this alcohol lamp to make use of that. The alcohol goes into this tube here, and it lasts around an hour per cylinder without having to add more fuel, making it a pretty good tool in my opinion.

There’s nothing wrong with using light magic as light, but having options like this would mean being able to save up on magic power. It can also be used for kettles or cooking, so it’s no waste either way.

As I lit it, I taught Sebasu-san how to use the normal-sized alcohol lamp I created for kettle use.

“I see. It’s brighter than candles, and also quite hot. Like this it’ll definitely be useful even for cooking outside. Ryouma-sama, if you don’t mind, could I use this for a while?” [Sebasu]

In response, I just gave Sebasu-san a few points to be wary of when using it, then I lent it to him. At that, Remiri-san called out to me.

“Hey, Ryouma-kun.” [Remiri]

“What is it?” [Ryouma]

“What did you make this bedding out of? It’s really light, and it feels really good.” [Remiri]

Looks like she’s interested in my sleeping bag. Although I say ‘sleeping bag’, it’s not the type where I completely insert my body into. Rather I took a mattress, cut it into two, and sewed it up at the base. I made it that way so I could easily run away in case I need to. Well, I’m always in my ‘Dimension Home’ though, so I’ve never really had any situations where I needed to go outside immediately.

Incidentally, the materials used in this sleeping bag are the fluffs of the fluff slime that I caught half a year ago. While I was researching the fluff slime, and was watching the fluffs fluttering about in the air, I thought to use it to create pillows and mattresses.

When I first tried it out, I just filled a nearby jute bag with the fluffs, so the resulting product had a horrible texture. But I was at least able to prove that it’s possible. So after that, I dropped by Serge-san’s store, bought some sheets, and sewed them together. And like that, I was able to create a sack that had a nice texture, was soft, light, and warm, resulting in a product similar to that of a quilt.

Then I went a step further, and even treated the sheets with waterproofing. I also made it so that the fluffs inside would be uniform and not randomly arranged. After that, I revised it a few more times by trying it out, until finally I was able to complete my sleeping bag.

I also took the fluff slimes with me to the abandoned mine in Gimuru to observe it. As a result, I understood that the fluff slimes reproduce in the same way as the dandelions do.

At the start, a majority of the nucleus wouldn’t grow even without splitting, and died. Apparently, just like any other seed, the nucleus of the fluff slimes won’t grow unless it receives the proper nutrients. So it needs to fall to the ground, and absorb the nutrients around it. If the nutrients in the soil are insufficient, then it won’t grow either.

As proof of that, they barely grew with normal soil, but a great number of slimes were born with the soil that’s been cultivated with the scavenger slime’s fertilizer. Soil isn’t needed for its growth later on, but for a fluff slime to become a fluff slime from its fluff, it needs to have the proper nutrients.

And because I’ve been using the fertilizers of the scavenger slimes so much, I had to take on the latrine pits request. Then again I don’t only use it for the fluff slimes, I also use it for plantations, and growing medicinal plants for my wood magic, so it’s not really a waste.

Because of the scavenger slime’s deodorizing and cleaning abilities, it doesn’t stink, so that’s good. Also, I never realized this back in the forest because I would use up the fertilizers immediately, but apparently, I can use alchemy to dry the fertilizers, and turn them into powder form. Which in effect allows me to preserve them.

Cleaning the latrine pits is also a request from the guild, so while it doesn’t make a lot of money, it’s still income. The other adventures often ask me why I’m still doing jobs like that, but it’s actually a relatively good job for me.

“Ah, I have to make the scavenger slimes spit out fertilizers now…” [Ryouma]

Immediately, I opened the ‘Dimension Home’ and brought out two large wine barrels, and a staircase made out of stone. There I had all the scavenger slimes throw up fertilizer.

They had a great banquet with the zombies just now, so if I don’t let them throw up the extra nutrients, they’ll end up reproducing again. Because I’ve been having them do the latrine pit requests for the fluff slime’s sake, they’ve been gradually increasing. And now, they currently number 5,009.

I don’t mind them splitting a few at a time, but if they all split now, it’ll take me more than a day to finish contracting with them. It’s difficult managing slime reproduction with slimes that reproduce quickly.

Moreover, according to Caulkins-san and the others, there’s a limit to how much the slimes can split. Once they go past this limit, the affected slimes will reproduce rapidly, causing a phenomenon known as ‘Slime Stampede’. The burden placed on the affected slimes are great, so after the phenomenon, the slimes will be weak.

I’m digressing, but the ones who discovered this was a slime research lab in the past that’s still being treated coldly today. Their hypothesis was that big slimes would appear after feeding a slime continuously. As a result, the slimes blew up, and started splitting rapidly. Causing their numbers to overflow even into the other rooms of the facility. After that, because of the extermination of the slimes, and the weakened slimes trying to get whatever nutrients they could get, a large number of research materials and theses were lost, which in turn cased the slime researchers then to be greatly hated.

Now, going back to the story.

I gathered over 5,000 slimes, but I couldn’t get any more slimes other than a king slime. I don’t know whether this means that there’s no more transformations, or that the number’s only insufficient. I want to solve this question soon, but I can’t have them reproduce now all at the same time.

I continued to let the scavenger slimes throw up fertilizer. Whenever the scavenger slimes would fill up a barrel, I would use my alchemy, removing all the water content, and filling bags with the powder fertilizer. There’s not much meaning in hiding anything from the others, so I’m not even trying anymore.

For a while, Remiri-san and Sebasu-san stared at me, wondering what I was doing. When they asked me, I explained to them, and they helped me out. Thanks to them, I was able to finish everything in no more than 20 minutes.

Speaking of which, not even a single undead came out during that time.

Taking the opportunity, Remiri-san also taught me the light magic, ‘Beam’. But the only thing I could cast was something that looked like light with no power at all behind it. The magic power consumption was also high, so I still can’t use it in battle.

If Remiri-san’s ‘Beam’ was like the ones from the robots in manga and anime, my beam was nothing more than the light from the magnifying lens, amplifying the sun’s light. Joking aside, I’ll have to gradually work on it.

TL Note: Remiri-san said ‘Come on’ in English. Written in katakana, but English nevertheless.